Community Foundations and Arts Groups Ask for Economic-Stimulus Help

January 14, 2009

Community Foundations and Arts Groups Ask for Economic-Stimulus Help

As Congress and President-elect Barack Obama grapple with how to structure their economic-stimulus measures, two more groups have proposed ways the package could help the nonprofit world:

Five community foundations in Ohio and Pennsylvania have asked for almost $165-million to help nonprofit groups in their states meet a surging demand for social services from people who have been hit hard by the country’s recession.

Americans for the Arts, an advocacy group, has proposed a package of measures to increase spending on arts groups.

The foundations — the Cleveland Foundation, Columbus Foundation, Philadelphia Foundation, Pittsburgh Foundation, and Toledo Community Foundation — today submitted a report to the Obama transition team and Congress that documents an “abnormal, rapidly increasing stress on the safety net” in their cities.

“We understand the need to bail out financial institutions and businesses, but we also need to focus on those who have lost their jobs, people who are hungry and cold, and families who are losing their homes,” Grant Oliphant, president of the Pittsburgh Foundation, said in a statement.

A study commissioned by the grant makers calculated that it would take $3.3-billion over the next two years to cover increased demands for social services from both government and charities in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The foundations’ request for aid in the stimulus package covers only money that would help local charities provide services like food and transportation subsidies, or about $165-million.

The study documents rising demand for help in areas including food, mortgage payments, utilities, transportation, and child care.

For example, the Cleveland Foodbank delivered 46 percent more food in June through October 2008 than it did during the same period a year earlier.

Action-Housing, an affordable-housing charity in Pittsburgh, saw calls about mortgage-delinquency problems jump 50 percent during the last six months. The United Way of Greater Cleveland received 70 percent more requests for transportation assistance in June through November 2008 than it did in the same period in 2007.

“It is our intention that this report serves also as an urgent indicator of what is happening across the country,” Mr. Oliphant said. The Pittsburgh Foundation started an emergency fund, Neighbor-Aid, last month with the United Way of Allegheny County to help nonprofit groups meet the increased demand for social services. It has raised $800,000, the statement said.

Americans for the Arts urged lawmakers to consider the needs of arts organizations — which it says employ 5.7 million people and generate $166.2-billion in economic activity — in crafting the stimulus package.

“This marks an unprecedented opportunity for our nation’s arts community to play a role in revitalizing America’s economy,” Robert L. Lynch, the group’s president, said in a statement.

The group proposed the stimulus measures provide at least $2-billion under the Community Development Block Grants program for projects to build and modernize arts facilities; and emergency funds to the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Institute of Museum and Library Sciences.

It also proposed increased arts funds for a range of federal programs, including the Labor Department’s adult, youth, and dislocated worker programs; the Agriculture Department’s rural-development program; the Commerce Department’s economic-development grants; and the Transportation Department’s transportation-enhancement program.

See The Chronicle‘s articles on the troubles arts groups are experiencing because of the recession, on a request from public broadcasters for help in the stimulus package, and on other proposals to help nonprofit groups.

— Suzanne Perry

Comments

The Trouble with Northern Ohio’s non-profit sector is mainly due to the “Foundation Syndicate” as chronicled in page 2 of the ITERNECINE MATRIX: Letter to Senator Charles E. Grassley of the Senate Finance Committee. http://www3.capwiz.com/usatoday/bio/userletter/?id=248&letter_id=199190241&content_dir=congressorg

— Berverly Miko Jan 17, 11:01 PM #

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